The Network Women’s Program of the Open Society Institute invited the 24 National VAW Monitors working on the international website project StopVAW – Stop Violence Against Women: http://www.stopvaw.org/, to gather information based on a common for all participating countries questionnaire in order to map the situation in their countries on violence against women, with special regard to the state response to it. The monitoring methodology was based on Recommendation (2002)5 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the protection of women against violence.

As a result of the project from December 2005 to October 2006 were prepared monitoring reports, which became the basis for 22 Country Fact Sheets. Besides the factual information, the Fact Sheets issue clear recommendations to governments, serving as effective tools for advocacy at national and international levels.

The Recommendations to the Government in the Fact Sheet for Bulgaria were prepared based on the information gathered by the Center of Women’s Studies and Policies – the Bulgarian partner in the monitoring project, coordinated by Liliya Sazonova.

Full-length Country reports of the participating countries in the StopVaw project will be available soon in English on the website of the project. The translation of the Bulgarian report is coming soon.